Experts warn health inequalities will be widened by the surge in the cost of living.
Laura Brant, 28, has already had to make some tough choices about a treatment keeping her alive.
"I'd say that it's the straw that broke the camel's back, really, with the cost of running the dialysis machine, the water it uses, the electric," she says.So Laura switched her dialysis away from the convenience and accessibility of home to a hospital. "The kind of constant worrying about how you're going to pay the bills, how you're going to feed yourself, how you're going to pay for your kids' clothes, takes a toll that we could probably all relate to.
"Also, not being able to access nutritious foods makes it really difficult to keep yourself well physically.""It's definitely noticeable that we are getting increased patients on the list who are calling up - no food in the house is a common thing, not able to pay the bills, people facing eviction, people actually acknowledging that they're going to lose their homes.
"But as the months go by, I think that's going to bite harder on people who previously would not have considered themselves on low incomes."Royal College of Nursing general secretary Pat Cullen says nurses themselves are affected. Royal College of Physicians president Dr Andrew Goddard says some of his respiratory-medicine colleagues are hearing of patients choosing to turn off oxygen supplies to save money.